Canada Asked to Cancel Biased Plane Repair Contract with Saudi Arabia

June 14, 1979

NEW YORK (Jun. 13)

The Canadian government was requested today to abrogate an Air Canada aircraft maintenance contract with Saudi Arabia which bans firms in Israel or owned by Israeli nationals from participating in sub-contract repair work on a Saudian Lockheed 1011 aircraft at Montreal’s Dorvol Airport. The request came from the Workmen’s Circle, the Jewish labor fraternal order.

“We have asked Don Mazankowski, the Canadian Minister of Transport, to investigate who is responsible at Air Canada for entering into such a discriminatory and inflammatory agreement,” Bernard Backer, president of the Workmen’s Circle said. Air Canada is a state-owned airline.

“For one nation’s ethnic discrimination to be hung as an albatross on another nation is, we feel, invading Canada’s long-time effort to end discrimination among people and to promote human right for all,” Backer said.